Morgado do Quintao Winery
I couldn’t be happier about our booking for lunch at this winery. We weren’t quite sure what to expect, only that we would have lunch under a gigantic 2000 year old olive tree.
Immediately upon arrival we started taking pictures of this beautiful place. White houses, teal doors, pink flowers, succulents, olive trees, vines….perfect. Wineries are definitely my happy place.
Raquel was our host, she brought out each course paired with wines. It turns out that no one else booked a Thursday lunch so Corrine and I were able to have a really romantic lunch in this beautiful setting. First we’re some tapas: chickpea and tuna salad (you know I didn’t touch that), carrot salad, olives, chorizo something (and really anything with chorizo is amazing), goat milk cheese, and fresh bread. All this paired with a crisp white wine. The winery only grows 3 varietals, two reds and one white. The white varietal is Crato Branco, a grape native to this region.
The next course was a fresh salad and cod fritters. Cod is the fish of Portugal and we were excited to try it. Some pictures from the website where we booked showed some scary fish so I had noted on my reservation that I don’t eat seafood but obviously they ignored that and it’s fine that they did. The cod fritters with the fresh salad were yummy. The produce here is just so much better. I could eat tomatoes for days here.
This course was paired with their rosè…except that it’s not really a rose. It is a “palhete” because it is made from mixing red and white grapes. (As opposed to a real rose which is made from red grapes having less contact with the skins. (Skins give the color.)) So this pink wine is crisp and dry with a bit more structure than a usual rosè.
The third course was the main dish: white rice with peas and a roast pork with garlic and olive oil and cilantro. There was a lot of garlic which definitely works for me!
The red wine that paired with this course was a mix of the two red varietals Negra Mole and Castelao. This was light in color and body but pretty full as far as taste. They age their wines in clay pots (amphora!) so it may taste a little bit like history! The Greeks were aging their wine in amphora too! Definitely more earth than fruit and she recommended serving it chilled.
Dessert time! An orange “cake” typical of Portugal but made with less flour so it is a bit more spongy. I didn’t think I would like it, especially because I was unsure of the orange cake paired with their biggest red wine. But both were delicious and maybe weren’t perfect together but two good things certainly don’t clash.
After the amazing lunch, we took a tour of the vineyard, talked to Raquel about wine, toured the beautiful house, and were invited back to help with the harvest next year. I am 100% down to pick grapes for a week in the Algarve!
